WhistlePig maps out expansion efforts

The WhistlePig Rye Whiskey warehouses in the Moriah Business Park will expand this year, with two more to be built.

Photo by Lohr McKinstry

MORIAH | The WhistlePig Rye Whiskey facility in Moriah is constructing two more buildings this year with two more planned for 2019.

The Vermont-based rye whiskey-maker has three warehouses now at the Moriah Business Park off County Route 7.

Essex County Industrial Development Agency Co-Director Jody Olcott said the total impact of the Business Park has been very positive since the IDA purchased the raw land in 1995.

“WhistlePig’s future plans which are already approved (are) two additional buildings in 2018 and two additional buildings in 2019 will give them their approved seven buildings,” she said. “The IDA owns an additional 15 acres at the park which we will begin to discuss and develop in 2018.”

The WhistlePig Rye Whiskey distillery in Shoreham, Vt. has plans for a warehouse complex with seven 14,000-square-foot bays to store up to 14,000 barrels of whiskey.

Olcott said John Sheehan & Sons of Willsboro completed the infrastructure work at the park for WhistlePig, putting in water and sewer lines and paving the access road.

“That infrastructure, water, sewer and road, was dedicated to the town at their December meeting,” she said. “We still own and operate the park, besides the road, which was dedicated to the town.”

“The IDA is in discussions with Pre-Tech Plastics to purchase the lot number 1, 22,000 square-foot building,” Olcott said. “This is an ongoing discussion and our goal is to secure Pre-Tech in New York for future years along with any expansion plans they may have.”

Moriah Town Supervisor Thomas Scozzafava said the WhistlePig warehouse complex is phase one, and the second phase is a distillery. Phases three and four are bottling equipment and a possible retail operation.

WhistlePig doesn’t have a retail store at present, but operates a tasting room at Danforth Pewter in Middlebury, Vt.

The company has its sole distillery in Shoreham, Vt. The operation started in 2010, when Dave Pickerell, the longtime master distiller for the Maker’s Mark bourbon distillery in Kentucky teamed up with WhistlePig founder Raj Peter Bhakta, a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” who purchased a 200-year-old working farm, renamed it WhistlePig Farm and began growing his own rye.